A well-used lander of alien origin burns its way out of Hent’s gravity well. It isn’t long before it’s on an intercept course with the orbiting derelict of the Albatross. Beside the derelict, the recently-gutted engine and reactor of the ship (removed during a previous trip) drift along. Albatross is a working ship, designed to be easily maintained. To this end, the entire engine and reactor assembly can be pulled out of its rear to be serviced. This feature has recently been used to swap out the destroyed fusion reactor and drive and replace them with the comparatively primitive atomic rocket to be used in its place. The finishing touches will still need to be applied inside the ship itself, however.

The lander closes in, finds its tiny docking bay within its beleaguered mothership, and docks. Two humans and one Zani have come on the lander, and they exit the airlock with a purpose. As they enter the ship, power from the lander makes its lights flicker on.

“You can either come with me or find a spot to float that won’t get awkward when the spin starts up.” Lance said, heading for the control room. His two companions, Sandra and Zani nuclear physicist Bek-Deel, elected to follow after him. Making it to the control room, Lance sat down at his familiar pilot’s console and began inputting commands.

“WIth the extra maneuvering propellant transferred over from the lander on our last trip back up here, getting a tumbling pigeon going should be trivial.” Lance said.

While space travel was by default a weightless experience, “gravity” could be simulated through the inertia created by acceleration. When a ship was under thrust, it created the illusion of gravity for its crew through its inertia. The decks of a ship were perpendicular to the thrust, so from the perspective of the crew it was as if the ship was accelerating “upwards” towards its destination.

However, ships were not always under thrust. Even with the incredible efficiency of modern engines, starships still spend much of their travel time simply drifting, in order to conserve fuel. During these periods of downtime, gravity is simulated by spinning. For military ships, this is accomplished by an internal centrifuge that spins like a top beneath its armored skirt. For yachts and luxury liners large, complex external rings or variable-geometry hulls will contort to create the spin gravity necessary without compromising passenger comfort.

However, for the majority of the ships flying through the Dark Space of the Orion Arm, such measures are needlessly costly. For economical ships like the Albatross, the easiest thing to do is to just flip the entire ship vertically end over end, repeatedly. The less-than-eloquent name for this method being, of course, the “tumbling pigeon.” With her crew module located towards the bottom end of the ship, and fuel and critical systems located towards the top, the ship can spin in this manner without inverting the internal gravity and turning the ceiling into the floor and the floor into the ceiling.

Albatross’s maneuvering thrusters fired on a carefully planned burn. Slowly, steadily, the three people aboard found themselves pulled to the floor by the inertia at a comfortable one half earth gravity of acceleration. The ship was more than capable of a faster spin and thus higher gravity, but it would be overkill. Besides, Lance loved half gravity. All the comforts of gravity, and you get to feel like a superhero with twice your normal strength.

Once the spin was properly started, the trio went to the engine room.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to get used to a giant slab of lead between me and the reactor.” Sandra said, crouching down and banging on the hatch that had once led to the reactor room, and now opened only to a lead wall a few centimeters from it. The old fusion reactor room could be climbed into by engineers for servicing when powered down. Try to do that with the current arrangement, and you’d be cooked alive by radiation.

“It’s a lot easier than getting used to terminal radiation poisoning.” Lance replied dryly.

“Fair enough.”

Bek-Deel looked around the engineering room with a mixture of excitement and reverence. “This is definitely the highlight of my career so far.”

Sandra smiled. “Ha, this is nothing. When I was in the Force, I got to serve aboard Zenith. Her engineering room was almost as big as the Albatross itself. Good God, the power output. One of her point defense lasers could probably melt clean through our girl. Albatross is my baby, but she’s a bucket compared to most of the stuff out there.”

“Zenith?” Bek-Deel asked.

Lance gave him the answer. “Our flagship. She’s a super dreadnought, bigger than almost any warship in the Arm. We started building her to fight the Diln, finished her to fight the Ivos, and she never got used for either purpose” He chuckled. “Pirates never give us any trouble thanks to her, though.”

Sandra went over to her console. “I’m going to begin the startup sequence, can you give me a hand, Bek-Deel?”

The alien gave his best attempt at a nod and walked over to her.

—

Hours had passed, and the reactor startup sequence had gone off without a hitch. Sandra and Lance were running through a systems check.

“Life Support.” Sandra said. All air scrubbers were showing as green, and the temperature regulators were on and functional.

“Check.” she said.

“Comm Laser.” The communications device showed its status as green on the console display.

“Check.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “I’ll be damned. I didn’t think those Zani parts would be able to fix it.”

Sandra ignored him and went on. “Telescopes and cameras.” The video feed from the various visual recording devices throughout the Albatross came through on the screens of consoles around her.

“Check.”

“Running lights.” The external cameras showed the beams of light coming from the activated spotlights.

“Check.”

“Point defense guns.” Trap doors on either side of the ship opened and auto cannons emerged from them. The ship was sent back slightly by the recoil as the guns fired a single burst before falling silent.

“Check. Looks like it takes those new bullets without a problem.” Sandra commented. The Zan had never even conceived of “caseless ammunition” before the humans had introduced the concept to them, but, once they had been given the proper chemical formulas, manufacturing the relatively small amount of rounds the Albatross’s guns used was fairly trivial.

“Main drive.” The console displayed “No Fuel.” on its engineering interface.

Sandra nodded in approval. “Check. Well, we know that the new operating system we made for the new engine works. Now we just have to install the new fuel tanks and feed system.”

—

Two of the new Zani chemical rockets had attached themselves to the side of Albatross. It was the second mission the brand new rockets had undertaken. The first had been transporting the custom-built fuel system that the Zani engineers had designed for the Albatross. After a very lengthy install, the ship was ready for its first unmanned shakedown cruise. The distances would be small enough to make light delay a non-issue, so remote controlling the Albatross was relatively simple. It also meant that no one would die if the highly experimental fueling system went up in a nuclear meltdown. Hopefully.

The Zani rockets towed the Albatross, accelerating for a carefully calculated amount of time. At the end, they detached themselves and left the human ship to drift. After several hours, the ship was at a safe enough distance for the test to begin. The task of the test was relatively simple: retrieve the antimatter containment unit from its orbit around the system’s star. For a chemical rocket, or other, lesser engines, it would be quite the task. It was in an awkward position in its orbit at the moment, and they would have had to wait weeks or even months for it to be in the optimal position. Then, at the exactly correct time, the ship would have to burn hard and expand its orbit, sending itself on a trajectory that would, eventually, intercept the object's orbit.

Such a maneuver was called a “Hohmann transfer” by the humans. It was an efficient and relatively inexpensive way of reaching a desired object in orbit of a star. However, it was also painfully slow. The Albatross would perform the much faster (and dramatically less efficient) Brachistochrone transfer. Essentially, it would burn hard towards the location of the object (or, more accurately, towards the location the object was going to be) and, when at the halfway point to its destination, it would burn for the same amount of time in the other direction. All going well, this would bring it to a stop at the desired destination. It was the way almost every starship in the Arm traveled, as their highly advanced fusion engines could accelerate for days at a time without concern.

With her comparatively primitive and inefficient fission rocket engine, Albatross would have to be a little more miserly than she would have needed to be in her prime.

With the minimum safe distance reached, Albatross ignited her main drive. Within the mission control room of the Ministry of Discovery the four humans and their newfound Zani friends crossed their fingers. A lance of white hot radioactive death shot out from the Albatross’s brand new drive cone, and the ship shot forward like…well, like a rocket. Cheers erupted in the control room as the rapidly growing number denoting the Albatross’s velocity was displayed on the large screen.

The old bird had new wings

—

While the thrust at the Albatross’s disposal was significant, she had still spent most of her day-long trip to the antimatter containment unit drifting without acceleration in order to conserve fuel. She had spent the first quarter of the trip accelerating. Then, she had stopped and drifted. Now, in the last quarter of her trip, she was facing away from her destination as she decelerated. It was fairly common by the standards of modern space travel: half the trip spent under thrust, the other half spent drifting. Of course, more modern ships wouldn’t have bothered with fuel saving measures for such a short trip. The propellant used by a fusion drive was incredibly cheap compared to the expensive nuclear salt water Albatross used.

The ship cut its thrust completely as it approached the containment unit. The ship was still drifting, albeit relatively slowly. It turned so that its cargo plate faced the direction the oncoming object would be.

Albatross flew past the containment unit, activating her magnetic cargo loader at a perfectly timed moment as it passed. The containment unit was pulled in and magnetically stuck to its cargo plate. The ship turned again, and began its acceleration burn for the trip home.

—

“This containment unit has seen better days, but the transition drive is showing all green.” Sandra said over the internal communications to the rest of the crew up in the ship’s control room.

“On the bright side, if the containment is breached we’ll die so quickly we won’t even have time to feel the pain.” Lance said with a crooked grin.

Akito and Janea glared at Lance, which only made his smile bigger.

There wasn’t any way to get a signal into Dark Space from within Real Space, so remote controlling the ship wasn’t an option. Because of this, at least one live person needed to be on board for the test, but the entire crew was present for this “test”, mainly because if the transition drive succeeded in getting the ship into Dark Space, but failed in getting it back out, the ship could still go for help and repairs.

His attempt at humor at an end, Lance went back to business. “Well, I hope no one forgot anything, because we are transitioning in 3…2…1…”

The Albatross instantly vanished from the Hent system and appeared in Dark Space.

Lance’s console immediately lit up as a contact appeared on his scopes. The pilot peered at it, and his heart rate began to increase.

“No…no no no-SHIT!” He keyed the intercom to Sandra. “Prepare to transition again, now!”

Sandra drew in a breath to protest, but it died as she processed the pilot’s serious tone. “Alright. It will take a minute to spool it back up after transitioning so recently, but-”

“Do it as soon as possible, forget the safety check! But first, brace for maneuvering.” Lance said into the intercom. The crew was thrown into their restraints as he flipped the ship over. He ignited the thruster and Allie went burning away from the contact.

“What the hell is-'' Akito began, but Lance held up a hand and transferred the telescope image to his and Janea’s consoles. Janea’s heart leapt into her throat as she looked at the image. It was a Diln ship, and it was no rickety privateer converted freighter. It was a proper warship, a recon interceptor.

Interceptors were the smallest class of warship, their main reason for existing being economic rather than tactical. Their personnel requirements rarely exceeded a dozen crew, and (fortunately for Albatross) they were too small to mount a proper hypervelocity cannon on. Some models even lacked a transition drive. These things made them cheap to operate, but next to worthless in a fleet battle. Because of this, they were usually relegated to second line patrol duties and reconnaissance.

The Diln liked to use them as aggressive patrol and scout ships. This far into the Frontier, they were the heaviest ships that they would have available on relatively short notice. They weren’t much compared to a proper warship, but compared to most of the junk being used as Q-Ships in the fringe backwater parts of the Arm, they were extremely lethal.

They were probably dispatched by whatever Diln officer was overseeing the commerce raiding operations in this region. They’re probably here to investigate what happened to the ship that attacked us. Janea thought. It’s sheer dumb luck that we happened to transition when they were in sight of us.

They were very near the limit of visual range in the light-dampening murk of Dark Space, but both ships could still just barely make eachother out. The front facing silhouette of the Diln interceptor was backlit by its drive igniting. The interceptor was burning for them, and hard.

“Sandra, I could really use that transition!” Lance said over the intercom. He was unwilling to increase his acceleration beyond one gee when one of his crew was not strapped into an acceleration couch.

“I’m trying, hold on...Alright! You’re clear to transition!”

Sandra hadn’t even finished her sentence before Lance sent the ship back to Real Space.

—

Ti-Zan had no military to speak of. The civil wars of the past were fought with large hordes of volunteer militia supported by the professional hunters of the various factions (the closest thing Ti-Zan had to professional fighters). Hunters still existed, and were still well armed and well trained, but their expertise began and ended wth killing the countless gigantic and dangerous animals of Hent. The National Police that functioned under the bureaucratic framework of the Courts were a large group of trained and armed bodies, but, like most law enforcement, their expertise lay more in solving crimes and babysitting drunk people than it did in defending the nation from attack.

Because of this lack of a military, the Zani government was at something of a loss. They recognized the need for the various new weapons being manufactured, but they didn’t really know who should be responsible for them. So, like most responsibilities the government didn’t know what to do with, the orbital missile silos had been unloaded onto the Ministry of Interior. Having the government organization responsible for public safety, sanitation, and health be responsible for the nuclear arsenal might make no sense to an alien, but it made perfect sense to Zani sensibilities. After all, these weapons had been created for the purpose of maintaining public safety, and one of the Ministry of the Interior’s responsibilities was public safety. Perfectly rational.

Despite this, it was still decidedly outside of the organization’s usual operations. Because of this, the Ministry had been sucking up talent from other Ministries to fill out the ranks of the new “Department of National Safety”, the unintentionally euphemistic organization responsible for the new fleets and weapons being assembled for the purpose of defending Ti-Zan from alien aggression.

Gree-Fen, newly-minted officer of the Department of National Safety, was one example of talent being pilfered from other ministries. He’d been a scientist in the Department of Astronomy, overseeing one of the many telescope arrays the Ti-Zan had used to observe the universe. Now, he oversaw the entire defense satellite array, and its orbiting weaponry. It was a promotion, to be sure, but Gree-Fen wasn’t sure how he felt about it. The stakes were a lot higher in this job than he was used to.

Like every other Zani, he’d watched the footage of the humans disappearing into “Dark Space”, mesmerized by the impossible sight. However, he was more surprised than mesmerized when it appeared from nothing once again. Ahead of schedule. It was lit up like a neon sign, more so than usual. It was sending out transmissions. Just as he was about to order that the transmission be played for him, another contact appeared on his scopes.

It was a ship, and it had appeared from nothing just like the Albatross. Which meant it was an alien ship. With considerably more urgency, Gree-Fen gave his order.

“Play their transmission.”

“-the Albatross, there is a Diln raider on our tail, prep all defenses. This is the Albatross, there is a Diln raider on our tail, prep all def-” Gree-Fen cut the transmission, and then did his best to fight down his panic.

“Warm up the pods.” he ordered, in what he hoped was a reassuringly calm tone.

Small pods of three missiles each had been ferried up into orbit by reusable chemical rockets. They were little more than a small computer and communications antenna attached to a missile rack. They didn’t even have targeting systems of their own, relying on the sensor grid to feed their missiles targeting data. The scrawny pods were a stop gap, intended to be replaced by proper missile silos when the designs for those were finalized. Unfortunately, the stop gaps were being put to the test now.

Gree-Fen had been given a communications line straight to the Mediator, who had been given ultimate authority over the weapons by the Governing Council. Gree-Fen used that communications line now.

“I take it this call is about our latest visitors, Officer Gree-Fen?” The Mediator’s dry tone came over the communicator.

“Yes, Mediator. So far, they are just drifting. They have yet to take any hostile action. I’ve powered up the orbital pods as a precaution. How should we proceed?”

“Broadcast the standard hail.” The Mediator ordered.

Gree-Fen obeyed his orders and brought his mic to his face. “Attention unidentified starship, you are currently within the sovereign territory of the Zani State. Please state your identity and purpose.”

The translation program had created rough translation protocols for many of the more common languages of the Arm after the successful creation of the protocols for Human Standard. It would be a lower quality translation, as it relied on machines rather than being custom designed by organics, but it would do in a pinch.

The supposedly Diln starship drifted for a little longer, then it transmitted a reply.

“This is the patrol vessel [Tyifanivelsti] of the [Diln Hegemony]. We are on an intercept course with a vessel that is suspected to be aligned with our enemies. Do not interfere, or we will have no choice but to use force to make you comply.”

A sigh of exasperation could be heard on the Mediator’s end. “Well, it seems they are about as diplomatic as our human friends have told us. They make first contact with us, and it only takes them three sentences to threaten violence.”

Steel could be heard in the Mediator’s voice when he spoke again. “We’re not handing over those people to these…beasts. Inform him that they have been granted asylum. If they want them so badly, their government should send an official request.”

Gree-Fen spoke into his microphone again. “Attention Tyifanivelsti, the ship in question has been granted asylum by the Zani State. If you wish to obtain custody of the ship, please have your government establish official diplomatic communications with us to facilitate negotiations.”

There was absolute silence from the Diln ship for almost a full minute. Then, it ignited its main drive and streaked forward at a high acceleration.

“Saints curse them!” the Mediator profaned. He sighed again. “Warn them. If they fail to leave, then you are clear to engage them at your discretion, Officer.

“Understood.” Gree-Fen said. He turned to his subordinates. “You heard the man. Paint that target.”

The satellite array lit up the oncoming Diln warship with a target lock. The ship did not react.

Gree-Fen began transmitting again. “Attention Tyifanivelsti, you are required to leave our space immediately. Failure to comply will be interpreted as a hostile act, and responded to accordingly.”

No response was given, and the ship continued to burn on an intercept with Albatross.

“Can’t say I’m surprised. They must be hoping we’re bluffing. Fire all from pods twenty-three and seven.” Gree-Fen said.

The missile pods in question released all three of their missiles. The guided weapons oriented themselves, and then ignited their engines. The missiles burned hard towards the oncoming target. The instant the missiles had been released, the Diln ship swerved hard, burning on a vector perpendicular to the oncoming missiles. When the missiles drew close enough, the interceptor began shooting them down with its point defense laser. The invisible beam of UV light focused on its first target. A handful of seconds passed, and then the missile was disabled, and the laser immediately sought out another target. It continued like this for some time, destroying the missiles one by one. Eventually, the last of the six missiles fell, and the Diln ship reoriented itself and decelerated.

The ship burned hard, this time heading straight for Hent instead of targeting the Albatross. Gree-Fen cursed.

“Fire all from pods fourteen through twenty.” he ordered.

Eighteen missiles were released from their pods and burned towards the Diln ship. Instead of going into another evasive burn, the Diln ship only accelerated harder. It kept coming, getting to an incredible velocity. Just as the missiles were about to intercept, it shot out all of its torpedoes and vanished into Dark Space. The torpedoes numbered eight in total. Two of them turned and burned towards the missile flight. The other six ignited their thrusters and went towards four of the orbiting satellites with blistering speed.

The first two torpedoes found a place in the Zani missiles and then detonated, their large nuclear warheads taking out five of the missiles. The other six Diln torpedoes found missile pods, tracking satellites, and other targets in Hent’s orbit, and then detonated. Fortunately, the targets were in a high enough orbit that the EMP did not cause any problems for the civilization below.

“Must’ve decided to do as much damage to our defense grid as they could before bugging out.” Gree-Fen mused.

He chuckled. “Well, let’s see if the Albatross can help us retrieve the warheads from all the missiles we just wasted.”

—

Aboard the Albatross, the crew argued.

“They’ll be back. They’re Diln, they won’t take this lying down.” Sandra said.

“No one’s questioning that. What I am questioning is you staying behind.” Akito countered

Janea butt in. “She’s staying behind to help the Zani with their defenses. Someone has to do it while we go off to the Fleet for help, and she’s the logical choice.”

Akito grew annoyed. “Fine, then I’m staying too.”

Now it was Sandra’s turn to be annoyed. “They’ll need you on the ship-”

“Why? To make sure they don’t steal it? The two of them can crew the ship easily. You and I did it that way for years. I’m not leaving you behind for the Diln. End of discussion.” Akito said resolutely.

Sandra groaned in annoyance, but she begrudgingly nodded. “Fine.”

She turned to Lance and Janea. “I have no idea how you can hope to convince Admiral Khatri, but we have to get the fleet’s help. We owe them that much.”

—

“So, you are convinced that the Diln will return?” the Mediator asked. He, his advisors, and the humans were gathered in a meeting room.

Janea nodded. “Yes. They know that you’re here now, and they know you have fired on their ships. They’ll be back.”

“And you believe that your fleet will help us?”

“I honestly don’t know. As I’ve said, we have no particular authority or influence among our people. The most I could do is speak with our leader and present your case, from there it is not my decision.”

“No, I think one of our own people had best present our case.”

He turned to Ti-Ro. “You are the obvious choice.”

Ti-Ro wasn’t sure if she was excited or terrified.

“...me?” she squeaked out.

“You speak their language, you have spent the most time among humans of any of us, and you were the first to speak with them. If you’re not qualified, then no one is.”

“Go now, the three of you. The sooner you leave, the sooner you might return with help. Saints know we’ll need it…”

Ti-Ro looked at her two human companions, feeling a mixture of delight at the prospect of traveling to another star, and dread at her reasons for doing so. She gave a quiet prayer to her ancestors and the Saints for their guidance, and then steeled herself for the task ahead.

—

Albatross appeared into Dark Space once again. Fortunately, there was no Diln warship to greet them this time.

“Well, last I recall the Fleet was negotiating a contract for soil at some agricultural colony a good distance from here. I suppose we should start there. “ Lance cracked his knuckles and began to input the course commands into the ship.

Ti-Ro looked at Janea, and gave her decidedly unpleasant Zani attempt at a smile. “You have done so much for us, in such a short time. To ask more of you seems…wrong.”

Janea shook her head. “You all stuck your neck out for us. It would’ve been easy for you to just leave us for the Diln, but you defended us. It’s our fault you’re in this mess, we’ll get you out of it. I hope.”

“Do you think your Fleet will help us?”

Janea shrugged. “Maybe. Other species stood by and watched while humanity was exterminated. We’d be hypocrites if we stood by and watched while your people were enslaved and subjugated by the Diln.”

Her face took on a more grim expression. “But we’re just…so few. The death of one human means so much more to the species as a whole than it did twenty years ago. If we commit to helping Ti-Zan, there will be casualties. We have already had so very many, many casualties. It’ll be a hard sell.”

Ti-Ro was a little disheartened at that. “Who else might help us?”

“The Coalition might. They’re mortal enemies with the Diln, but you’d almost certainly have to join them to get their help. They don’t have enough resources to expend any protecting non-member worlds. Of course, if they lose then they’ll just cut their losses and leave you in the dust. Another target added to the list for reclamation in their ‘inevitable’ counter offensive.”

“Does the war go so badly for them?”

“It depends on who you ask. They certainly aren’t winning, but they’re nowhere close to beaten yet. They just need one lucky break. Trouble is, they’ve been short on luck since their founding.”

She gave a hollow chuckle. “Still, they’ve got better odds than we did with the Ivos.”

Lance cut into the conversation. “Alright you two, brace for acceleration.”

They did as they were told. The powerful main drive ignited, and the Albatross burned on a course back towards her home and people for the first time in years.